


How a bird met Pops

by yvonna



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Happy, I love him, Made up back story, Marco super cute, no beta we die like men, thats not even a little real im sure, the whitebeard pirates - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yvonna/pseuds/yvonna
Summary: This was inspired on a one piece discord I'm in when pink_jester_ asked |What if Marco isn’t a person who ate a Phoenix zoan fruit? He’s a bird that ate the fruit|  And this is what i though of from that!
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Shirohige | Whitebeard | Edward Newgate
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	1. Marco

Marcos a Phoenix, he's been the only one for a while now. When he hatched there was another Phoenix, his mom, she taught him things, but he hasn't seen her in a long time, and isn't yet strong enough to fly off the island and find her.

He knows that if something happens and he falls and drowns that’ll be the end. Only the ocean can snuff out the eternal flame of a phoenix. And it's not like he's completely alone, the island has plenty of other birds around, but it’s not the same, they don't treat him the same.

They insist that Marco’s special and better than all other birds, and Marco knows that if want he could have them die for him. It’s not really fun, and as time goes on it feels even more lonely.

The birds know he is increasingly despondent, and constantly try and bring different things to cheer him up, but they also don't really understand what the problem is.

One day they bring him an odd fruit, it's something different so he eats it. At first he think its a mistake, it was thee worst thing he had ever eaten, bad in ways he could describe, and while freaking out about the taste he doesn't notice right away that he's not

## 

the

## 

same

##    
  


He looked at the odd things that had replaced his wings, the weird things that had replaced his talons. Everything about him was odd and weird now, and it was the most interesting thing ever.

He spent weeks experimenting with the new oddness, figuring out how to go back to himself was a huge relief, and had removed any lingering panic he could feel. The other birds who could travel long distances and had seen more than the island were able to tell him some things about his new form. Human they called it.

One day while walking along the Ocean something odd happened, Ships floated off in the distance often. Some had told him that when they tried to come closer they would crash, but they weren't sure why that would happen. But it did mean that ship would rarely come close, and hadn't since before he hatched.

## 

But one was now, on a large wave it was coming closer and closer. 

## 

Marco stood and watched, feeling no fear. What could they do to him after all? As long as they didn’t try and drown him he'd just heal. And if they tried to drown him surely he could just fly away? he may not be able to fly to the next closest island yet, but he could fly around his island several times before he got tired.

## 

The boat was very close now, when a large shadow jumped from it and landed with a loud THUMP to the side of Marco, sand flew everywhere and the ground shook hard enough to make him fall.

## 

When he looked up at the shadow it was a human, except much _MUCH_ larger than him (did all humans get that tall? Marco wasn't sure he wanted to be that tall.)

## 

The very large Human got closer to Marco,

## 

"ΛЯΣ YӨЦ ΛᄂЯIGΉƬ? ЩΣЯΣ YӨЦ ƬΉΣ ƧЦЯVIVӨЯ ӨF Λ ƧΉIP ЩЯΣᄃK? ƧӨП? ᄃΛП YӨЦ ΉΣΛЯ MΣ?"

## 

The Large Human was making noises at Marco, and he could only figure it was trying to communicate, unfortunately Marco had no idea what he was saying, and was mostly going with his feelings that said 'Large human not angry, won't hurt.'

It was interesting, so Marco tilted his head and chirped at it, Maybe the large human could speck bird?

Apparently not, as the It simply made a face, made some more noises, and picked Marco up. 

Marco let It, he didn't fight when the large human picked him up, he didn't fight or jump and fly off when it took him to its ship, and he didn't fight or fly away as a large wave came up and carried them away from the island.

He could have, maybe even should have, he left all his stuff behind, and he couldn't understand the large human, or any of the smaller human that surrounded them, and they couldn't understand him...

## 

But....

it was different, and interesting, and the Large Man had just. Touched him.

Other Birds didn't touch Marco, The only bird that touched him was his mom, and she'd been gone for years now.

It was nice. Maybe it was a sign? He didn't know, but he figured if needs must he could always fly away.

##    


Years later, Once Marcos got a good handle on human speech and a bird that knew human speech helped him translate his name, Thatch will ask how Pops and Marco met, Marco will learn how Pops saw it, because Marco himself never really thought about it.

##    
  



	2. Pops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitebeard pov

Edward Newgate had been lost in thought, thinking about how things were now, how everything had changed since the battle at gods valley, about where they would go next, and what he should do.

His crew was still small, and most of them were old, people from the Rocks pirates that had decided to follow him when they had collapsed until they could have a safe place to retire to. A handful were new to the pirate life, that he had found while touring the blues.

He had needed a break from everything in the grandline, just a short one, give things time to calm down from his captain's insanity and death, and it had been years since he had been in the blues besides. He had started with South Blue, but already that was coming to an end, and it would be time to travel to the next Blue.

  
When he had seen all the Blues, seen what had changed, perhaps found more people who would follow him, and found places for members of his previous crew to settle down in safety like they wanted. Then he would go back to the grandline.  
He had plans and ideas. He would have his Family, and he would make a safe place for them, for the ones that wanted to retire or have families of their own and know they were safe while they sailed, he wanted a large family and a large home, and he would have them!

They had been sailing past an island that everyone knew was a place to avoid, the whole of it surrounded by Reefs and large sharp rocks and strong, constantly changing currents, it would have been normal to see in the grandline, but here in South Blue is was more than a bit of an oddity.

It had only been by chance that he had looked over, something sparking on his haki and saw the small head of bright blonde hair against the backdrop of the forest.  
Standing up and snapping some quick orders resulted in the ship coming to a halt and his spyglass in hand.

It was a small head of blond hair! His eyes weren't playing tricks on him! A child, no older than 10, on an island known for shipwrecks? That had no humans living on it?

  
It had seemed very clear to Newgate that the child was a victim of a shipwreck by people not from South Blue, it was entirely possible he wasn't the only one there either.  
Making a wave to get them to the very edge of the coral was no problem, He had trained and experimented with his devil fruit reliquesly since he ate it as a child, timing where they would stop and how was second nature at this point.

It was close enough for him to jump to, and getting back with the help of that Marine technique he had learned from a different Rock pirate years ago would be no trouble.

So he did. He landed near the boy, and while the sand that flew up with his landing cleared used his haki to check that no other humans were on the island. and then looked at the boy.

He was sitting -Ah his landing had likely sent the tiny boy tumbling hadn't it?- staring up at Newgate with a look of shock and awe on his face.  
"Are you alright? Were you the survivor of a shipwreck?" The boy made no effort to respond, just tilting his head oddly to the side, could he not hear?

"Son? can you hear me?" The boy did respond this time, but not in a way that he particularly liked, he made a sound like a bird chirping and then stared up at Newgate expectantly.

  
Just how long had he been here if he couldn’t speak or understand? If he only knew bird? Was he shipwrecked here as a baby or young child? How had he survived?

  
One thing was for sure, Newgate wasn't going to leave a young child by himself on an island that his Haki told him only had birds. Bad enough he had been left alone for so long.

"It's going to be alright son, I'll take care of you, don't worry."

  
Picking the young boy and taking him back to his ship was easy, the child didnt fight in anyway, just sat calmly in his hand, still looking up at him with big curious eyes.  
It was then, heading back to his ship and looking at the small boy who had clearly been alone for far too long that Newgate swore to himself that he'd keep him safe, happy, and never alone again.

Things went well with the new addition to the crew, Everyone was mostly accepting of the odd bird boy as they had started to call him. One of the older members, who had often teased Negate about his dream, taught the Boy to call him Pops. Many of the crew who had been around the first time he was called that, liked to bring it up as it's one of the few things they can use to tease him with.

(Marco when asked about it, could offer only a shrug. “I had no clue what the word meant then, just that it made him happy so I kept calling him that.)

He proved to be a very smart young thing, easily adapting to his new environment, picking up language fast, months later when the bright happy blond that most of the crew had taken to foundly calling bird boy was a bright memory for him

"Pops! Pops! I Marco!"

A less bright memory was when weeks later some Marines decided to attack and Marco was stabbed.

The marines had not lasted long after that, and Marcos confusion on why everyone was upset hadn't really helped the ensuing panic.  
Sometimes he wished Marco didn't heal instantly, because he was far too careless for his own health and safety for Newgates heart.

Not that he would ever regret bringing Marco with him, it was clearly the best thing he had ever done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! if you can think of any tags i should use, or notice any mistakes please let me know! and let me know what you think of the story its self too!


End file.
